Ask the Author: Jill Culiner
Answered Questions (4)
Jill Culiner
My idea for Death by Slanderous Tongue, came from reading a newspaper article about the murder of a village employee in north-western France, not far from where I live. Rumour said he had been sleeping with many of the village wives, but because you never get to read the end of a story in a paper, I decided to write my own version. As for Sad Summer in Biarritz, I did happen to meet almost all of the characters in the book, and they struck me as being so extreme, I knew I had to write about them. I also wanted to have, as my heroine, a woman who is desperately running away from an abusive partner, and hopes to be rescued by new love.
In both Sad Summer in Biarritz, and Death by Slanderous Tongue, I also wanted to show aspects of life in France that most writers (nearly all of them occasional tourists to the country or dreamy-eyed new residents) fail to portray. France is not the cute country of quaint locals and a traditional life style. It is as rough and modern and suspicious a country as any other.
In both Sad Summer in Biarritz, and Death by Slanderous Tongue, I also wanted to show aspects of life in France that most writers (nearly all of them occasional tourists to the country or dreamy-eyed new residents) fail to portray. France is not the cute country of quaint locals and a traditional life style. It is as rough and modern and suspicious a country as any other.
Jill Culiner
Read everything in every genre. It always surprises me that some potential writers only read books in one field (romances, or mysteries, or sci-fi, or historical fiction.) I think we should sharpen our wits with fine books in every field — particularly literary fiction and beautifully written pure history — otherwise we will only be mediocre craftspeople.
Jill Culiner
I simply go do something else — either work on another manuscript, or stop writing altogether and work on playing music, or drawing, and working on photography, or doing research on a totally different subject. Some books take ten to twelve years to complete, so why fret? I'm not the sort of author who churns out one book after another. I want precision and the pleasure of taking my time, and the delight of crawling into an idea and letting it come to life slowly.
Jill Culiner
There's one moment Aldous Huxley describes in the very beginning of Chrome Yellow: his hero, the young poet Denis, is on a train; "Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All the trains — the few that there were — stopped at all the stations... Camlet was where he always got out, leaving the train to creep indolently onward, goodness only knew whither, into the green heart of England."
The year is 1921; England is still a place of beauty with its green hedgerows and lovely cottages; the horrors of WWI are over and no one forsees WWII. This is a time of fine literature, brilliant musical composition, artistic experiment, and architecture is still both exquisite and intelligent. And Denis is on his way to a splendid old country house where he will meet with cranky literary figures and eccentrics.
These few promising moments in a train chugging into that vanished world, are the ones I would like to experience — just to anticipate, and to see, feel, hear, smell how things were.
But, of course Crome Yellow is a satirical work: Denis will be betrayed by his own ineptitude; his lady love appears to be interested in someone else; the literary characters are there to sponge off their host; and the eccentric figures can be terrible bores. And my perfect moment will be, of course, all too brief.
The year is 1921; England is still a place of beauty with its green hedgerows and lovely cottages; the horrors of WWI are over and no one forsees WWII. This is a time of fine literature, brilliant musical composition, artistic experiment, and architecture is still both exquisite and intelligent. And Denis is on his way to a splendid old country house where he will meet with cranky literary figures and eccentrics.
These few promising moments in a train chugging into that vanished world, are the ones I would like to experience — just to anticipate, and to see, feel, hear, smell how things were.
But, of course Crome Yellow is a satirical work: Denis will be betrayed by his own ineptitude; his lady love appears to be interested in someone else; the literary characters are there to sponge off their host; and the eccentric figures can be terrible bores. And my perfect moment will be, of course, all too brief.
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